Fugitive Pieces is Youth Panel's favourite

London, 7th June 2010: As part of the Orange Prize for Fiction’s 15th anniversary, the 2010 Youth Panel has selected Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces as their favourite novel from all the previous winners. Recruited via Spinebreakers.co.uk the Youth Panel is part of the Orange Prize’s strategy to engage with younger readers and introduce them to the great backlist of past winners.

The youth panel members are Hazel Compton (18), Kate Edwards (17), Fergus Ewbank (18), Pooja Gohil (17), Conrad Landin (17), Kirsty Woodford (17). The Youth Panel was supported by Research In Motion® who provided the judges with smartphones to help discussions via text, email and BlackBerry® Messenger.

Tthe award will be presented by Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall as part of the 15th anniversary celebrations. The Duchess recently invited the panel to Clarence House where they held the final judging meeting.

Anne Michaels said, "It means more than I can say that Fugitive Pieces has been chosen by the Orange Prize Youth Panel. How heartened I am that this book has been received, with alertness and openness, by readers courageous enough to take to their hearts both the complex questions and the hope contained in its pages.

Fugitive Pieces is a discussion of history, a serious enquiry into events and their consequences; what love makes us capable of, and incapable of. And it is a discussion of the deepest responsibilities of memory.  That these questions have been embraced by the minds and hearts of young readers – the youth that is taking its place in the world – is utterly hopeful. I could not wish for a more meaningful honour."

Kate Mosse, Co-Founder & Honorary Director of the Orange Prize for Fiction, was the facilitator for the judging meetings.  “It was a great pleasure to eavesdrop on the fabulous discussions held to get down from the shortlist of six previous winners to the overall winner. The debate was lively, focused, passionate – everything that we had hoped for – and wonderful that their final choice should be one of our earliest winners, proving – if proof we needed – that literature of the highest quality speaks beyond its time and context.”